Love Demonstrated, Gravity Reversed

This weekend, Evan Earwicker, our High School Pastor said some very powerful things. Let me simply quote some of what he said in my post this morning:

Throughout this series, we’ve talked about the weight of sin that pulls us towards death. How from the first time mankind messed up, we became estranged from God. For thousands of years, the only way to gain God’s acceptance was this: “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am holy.” (Lev. 11:44)

Clean yourself up, and you’re in. Sacrifice enough animals, and your sin will be atoned for. Come see me when you’ve fixed your failures. Good luck. And we withered under the weight of it. Far from God, sickened by sin. Powerless to shake it.

One more quote on love: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8 (NIV)

There was no greater obstacle than our sin, and no greater demonstration of love than the cross of Christ. In Christ, we no longer had to work our way to Him, He came to us – became Immanuel, GOD-WITH-US. And for the first time in human history, the deck was stacked in our Favor. Finally, the pull of His Grace was stronger than the gravity of sin. On the cross, He couldn’t make the message any more clear : I AM FOR YOU. And the proof was Jesus.

“When we encounter the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ, we must revise all our previous thinking about God. Jesus…defines God as love. In light of this revelation, we have to abandon the cankerous, worm-eaten structure of legalism, moralism, and perfectionism that corrupts the Good News into an ethical code rather than a love affair.” Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus

Leave the legalism and perfectionism here today, and let His love ring in your ears and settle on you.

Action: Do you agree with Evan? Why or why not? Take some time today and let the love of God, through Jesus Christ, invade your space. How does it make you feel? What does it make you think? Does it change the way you go about your day? If so, how?